Abstract

Variable optical time delay lines are key components for a wide range of photonic and electronic-photonic system applications, including optically-steered phased-arrayed antennas (PAAs), light detection and ranging (LIDAR), optical storage, optical sampling, optical communications and all-optical signal processing, optical interconnects and optical coherence tomography. Thermal tuning of delay in silicon photonic devices based on all-pass filters, coupled resonator optical waveguides and photonic crystal (PhC) line-defect waveguides has been demonstrated [1−4]. However, an electronically-tuned, low-loss, fast, compact, wavelength-independent and high resolution delay line is lacking. Such a silicon photonic device based is proposed here.

© 2011 Optical Society of America